21 May 2012

Agnes skates to centre ice, whistle in hand. She takes a puck from her pocket and turns it over and over meditatively. She looks at her watch. The game starts in one minute. She’s completely alone.

Tuula comes down from the house.

Tuula: “The rappers and the intramural hockey players went to a bar last night and got into a brawl. They’re in jail. The red-haired captain is in bed with a broken heart. The timekeeper went home to Moncton. We Finns thought it would be unfair to take the forfeit win under the circumstances.”

The magnitude of the debacle is humbling.

“You’re all disqualified,” says Agnes.

Tuula turns toward the warm lights of the house.

“Your witches and our witches are up at the house drinking cocoa. Do you want to join us?”

Agnes takes a last look around the rink. It’s going up to plus eight tomorrow.

She says, “Three months ago I had the world by the tail. I was going around fixing other people’s problems. Sensible Jacinthe, seeing the big picture. Make the stick shorter. Now suddenly I’m into the remainder of my life. I’ve had my great romance. It’s done. It’s all done with. Finished. Kaput.”

“Don’t kill yourself over it.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ve got a long lonely existence ahead of me. I’ll live to be a hundred. Old and unloved. Forgotten before I even die. They’ll find me by the smell. The elbow pads go inside the sweater. It’s not 1930.”

“Are you sure there’s no chance?”

“Not a chance in hell. She’s transferring to St FX. She’ll get her ring there. They wear cages on their helmets, Jake. They may be hockey players but they’re still young women. They don’t want to end up covered in scars.” She looks around restlessly. His drawing is making her uncomfortable.

Jake: “Are you going to write about it?”

“No! It’s too close! It’s too private.”

“Okay.”

He crumples up the drawing. Then he takes her fist and puts it against his arm.

“Pull it away quickly.”

She does, saying, “Why am I doing this?”

“That’s you taking back that punch.”

“Oh. Okay. Yeah, it is.”

The library. Agnes comes up to Dwayne in the reference section.

Agnes: “Dwayne, I was wrong to break up with you. Do you think we can ever get back together?”

Dwayne: “I don’t know, Ag. You were pretty definite about it. You said some things.”

“I take them back.”

“How do I know you won’t do the same thing next year?”

“I’ve learned my lesson. Spinsterhood sucks.”

“Huh. I hear you. I’ll tell you what. If you can beat me I’ll take you back.”

“Beat you? Beat you at what?”

“Leg wrestling.”

“Leg wrestling? What, here? In the reference section?”

“Right now. Let’s go. Unless you’re yella.”

“I have not yet begun to leg wrestle.”

They get down on the floor, side by side, heads pointing in opposite directions. They each put a leg in the air. They hook them together.

“On three. One. Two.”

She flips him over to the other side of her, right into the chemical index.

Librarian: “Will you please!!”

They jump to their feet. Agnes is holding her hand over her mouth. Dwayne takes it by the wrist and pulls it away.

Agnes: “HAW HAW HAW HAW!”

“Ha. Made ya laugh.”

June. Janice pulls the car into the dirt road and turns off the engine. Spruce bows form a low canopy over the track angling up into the hills. She hikes about half a mile and then spots the pink of apple blossoms among the evergreens. She jumps the ditch and moves in through the orchard until she locates the tree with the apple ladder. She climbs it cautiously and is soon up among the blossom-heavy boughs. When she arrived home from university this time her family noticed the change in her. She had been saddened somehow. She put it down to a disappointing year, though her marks were is good as before. The mother asked her obliquely if she had been to see a doctor. “No.” Then, “Oh, God, no, Mom. Nothing like that.” But in a way it was something like that. She had had her heart set on a future that would not now happen. She puts her forehead to the rough bark. The end of the affair is still bitter and sharp in her memory. Its sweet beginning seems unrelated or coincidental. Can the two things really go together? She has come up to this place she remembers writing about in that letter she stashed away somewhere, and is now balanced near the top of the pointed ladder with her arm around a branch and a spray of blossoms pressed to her face, crying and crying, not because her love is gone but because it’s still there. The world is just as beautiful as it was before, but is now no longer hers. She breaks off the bough and climbs down with it. Looking for her way back she guesses wrong and moves deeper into the woods. Presently an old house emerges. Time has crushed it. She peers in through the windows at heaps of roof timbers. Circling around the back she discovers something she didn’t expect. The ornamental lilac bushes are in bloom. Decades of neglect have allowed them to spread and tower. She stands and marvels. They cause her to re-evaluate. The apple blossoms, she had already decided, are her love. And that house is manifestly her ruined plans. But these lilacs…!

14 May 2012

Game Ten. The Daughters of Louhi need only win this game to take home the … what?

Jacinthe: “Do we have a trophy lined up?”

Agnes: “I’m sure I put you in charge of that.”

“I’m sure you didn’t.”

They cast around and come up with an attractive coffee travel mug from Kaitlyn’s knapsack. Kaitlyn, whose website is beginning to develop a small global following, is by the Louhi net taking pictures.

“Say cheese.”

Three Louhis smile around their mouthguards.

Josey, Hanne and Agnes gather at centre ice for the opening face-off. They’re about to go when Agnes points to the centre ice dot and says, “What’s that?”

Josey: “What’s what?”

Hanne: “There’s a coin in the ice.”

Tuula jumps off the bench and pushes her way in.

“Who put a coin in my ice?!”

Josey: “It’s probably Finnish. Is it a euro?”

Tuula: “You know it’s a loonie!”

Josey: “I know you are.”

Tuula’s really seriously angry. She pushes them away and they all hang back as she digs it out with her heel, then throws it as far as she can down the lake.

“People have broken their legs by skating on coins!”

She fills the gouge with ice shavings and water melted between her hands, then smooths it with the puck.

“You’ve ruined my good mood!”

She skates back to the Louhi bench and fumes.

Hanne: “She broke her leg once.”

Josey: “I kind of got that.”

They play. Hanne wins the draw and puts it back to the Louhi defence. Lindsay goes on the forecheck and demonstrates her claim to the name Harrier by swirling and darting in front of the net and preventing the defenseman Lena from starting out. Josey skates to the corner, then toward the net, raps the ice and shouts, “Pass me the puck!” in Finnish. Lena backhands it to her without looking and Josey tucks it in the open net. The Louhi bench heap Finnish swear words on the Moms, but when they notice that Emily, Irene and Kirsten are yelling as loudly and fluently as the rest of the team they desist for fear of looking hypocritical.

Lena regains her honour by scoring her first goal on a long pass from the offensive-minded Karin Ek.

Period two is end to end, but both goalies have the hot hand and keep the puck in play. Agnes skates in small loops near centre ice, allowing the rushes to pass her on either side. The players swoop around her toward the Louhi goal, then dash back toward the Isobel end. The last two out are Courtney for the Isobels and Emily for Louhi. As they pass Agnes Emily staggers and drops to her knees and stomach, yelping and holding her thigh. Agnes whistles down the play, slashes at her own leg with her hand and points to Courtney. Courtney is the picture of outraged innocence.

“I didn’t do it!”

“In the box.”

“I didn’t do it!”

Emily limps to the bench. On the ensuing power play Louhi scores. Jodi digs the puck out of her net, then skates over to Josey. The two confer about what Jodi saw. Agnes whistles twice, and goes to drop the puck. Josey cruises in and takes the face-off. The puck goes to Marita who gains the zone and passes to Nell who takes it to the net, shoots, then circles behind the net. Josey and Sanna go after the rebound, collide, and Josey spins around, falling to her knees, shaking off her glove and cradling her wrist. Whistle.

Sanna gives Agnes a sidelong look on the way to the box. The Isobels go on to score.

Emily skates out to take the face-off. She wins it and dashes off with the play. Agnes notes her smooth stride. Both teams change and Josey joins the play, stickhandles deftly and makes a pretty pass to Katja, who scores. Agnes has seen enough. During the next shift Emily spears Courtney in the ribs and heaves her into a snowbank. Whistle. Agnes goes to the timekeeper. “Courtney Milne, two minutes for diving.”

Courtney: “What?” The two captains converge on Agnes.

Agnes: “Well, you’ve done it. I’ve lost my mind. I can no longer distinguish right from wrong. There’s no telling what I’ll call next.”

They cut out the diving.

Third period. Louhi need a goal. The face-off is in the Isobel end. Emily and Irene circle and bump shoulders.

Emily: “I need something on Jacinthe.”

“I don’t get her. Was she gay last year?”

“That’s it! Thanks!”

Emily and Josey hunker down on opposite sides of the button, sticks poised. Agnes releases the puck.

Emily: “Did she tell you about Jake?”

Josey’s skate goes out from under her and she ends up on one knee as the puck leaps from Emily to Irene to the back of the net.

Josey scores the game-winner in the shoot-out, but doesn’t do much celebrating.

Jacinthe and Josey are studying at a large table in the library. Opposite Jacinthe is a girl with a runny nose. Every few minutes Jacinthe’s concentration is broken by a short quiet sniff. The fourth or fifth time it happens she digs into her coat pockets and passes a package of Kleenex across. The girl glances up from behind a taped-up pair of glasses and gives her a grateful smile. Her eyes are red and swollen.

Josey gives Jacinthe a tap on the arm. They gather their affects and head back to residence.

“I didn’t want to catch that.”

“She was crying, actually.”

“Oh.”

They get in, throw off their coats and sit looking at their open books.

“Jacinthe, who’s Jake?”

“Jake. He’s just a friend. We went to high school together.”

“But he goes here.”

“Yes!” Then, “Josey, it’s you I love.”

She sits there motionlessly.

“You love me?”

“Yes!”

“You never said so.”

“I’m saying it now!”

Josey sags with relief.

“I wasn’t sure.”

“I love you, I love you, I love you!”

“Oh, Jass,” she says, “Jass, it’s a whole new world. We can get married. We’ll elope, you and me. We’ll take the train to Toronto. There’s a gay church there. We’ll be married.”

It’s Jacinthe’s turn to not move. Married? What? She snaps out of it and blurts, “Josey, I’m twenty years old. I’m a university sophomore. I have like nine dollars in the bank. I’m not going to marry the first girl I fall for.”

As soon as it’s out of her mouth she wants it back. Josey sits there in open-mouthed shock, as if her brain has hung up on the last process. She blinks, swallows, and asks, “Whose room are we in?”

“It’s my room, Jose.”

“Then. I have to go.”

She gets up and leaves, guiding herself like someone in complete darkness.

Jacinthe goes to Josey’s room to ask forgiveness. She knocks quietly. She pushes the door open and finds the room crowded with floormates. Their faces tighten at the sight of her. In the corner Josey is bent over her desk in a posture of suffering, one hand shielding her eyes from the door. Beth sits beyond at the window, bending down to her with a look of deep sadness.

Courtney steps from the bed to the door, Jacinthe retreating before her fierce look.

Courtney: “How come everyone saw this coming but you?”

Jacinthe: “I--.”

“You. You certainly pushed all her buttons.”

“What do you mean?”

“She was just coming off a bad breakup, you know.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t know. You didn’t think about all the other people in that bed with you.”

“What?” She doesn’t have a clue what Courtney’s talking about.

“Didn’t you ever wonder why you didn’t run into her last year? It’s because she was at UNBSJ. She transferred because she couldn’t stay there.”

“What do you mean?”

“Her best friend took her true love from her, and the two of them went rock climbing, and her true love fell and died and guess who you look like?”

07 May 2012

It’s a busy night for Agnes. She’s done a high school league game which began at six, is two periods through a SSWHL match between the Lions and Tigers, has the SLHL at midnight, and a stats test to study for at some point in between. The senior game has been particularly rough, as both teams are fighting for a playoff spot against league-leading Midgic Gravel and Cartage. She’s broken up three fights already.

Between periods Agnes says, “Mrs Estabrooks, I’ve been thinking about the way the players commit infractions behind your back. Wouldn’t it be better if the linesman could call the penalties the referee doesn’t catch?”

Mrs Estabrooks knits her brow. “Doesn’t catch? I’m not sure what you mean. Can you offer any specifics?”

“Numbers 3 and 18 have been going at each other all game.”

Mrs Estabrooks has a good laugh. She pats Agnes on the arm. “I’ve known those two since they were in strollers. They can’t get up to anything I don’t know about.”

“But all that hooking.”

“If there’d been a serious infraction I’d have called it. You have to let the players play. You just keep your eye on those offsides.”

“I just can’t stand the cheating.”

“Rules are like sticks, Agnes. There’s a certain amount of give before they break.”

“Then why didn’t you bend on the Finnish players?”

“That’s entirely different.” There’s a note of annoyance in her voice now. “That was a matter of policy. Really, Agnes, you have to learn the difference between large and small issues before I can make you a referee. Now you’ve made me upset, and we have another twenty minutes to get through. I’m not used to being second-guessed. To think I passed up supper for this. My stomach is growling! Make yourself useful, Agnes, and go and get me a hot dog. Lots of sauerkraut. Here’s a five. Be sure and count the change.”

Agnes puts down her textbook, takes the money and goes. She counts the change. She loads on the sauerkraut, then looks among the condiments to see if there’s a bottle of poison. When she gets back someone has stolen her stats book.

Game Seven, midnight. The Isobels are doing stretches when Emily leans toward Josey and asks, “So, are you going to be playing with us tonight, or just yourself?”

Josey, in her best locker room sang froid, replies, “But, Emily, I wasn’t by myself at all last night. How were things in your lonely cot?”

Kirsten and Courtney exchange merry looks.

Emily, who was alone, and has been for some months, says, “Fuck.”

Agnes observes this exchange from centre ice, then skates over to the timekeeper’s table. She’s in a bad mood about Mrs Estabrooks, the textbook, and, a bit to her chagrin, Dwayne. The sight of Jacinthe with her cheek on her hand and her mind a million miles from the score sheet doesn’t help.

“Do you have the roster changes?”

“There are none.”

“Do you know somebody stole my stats textbook today?”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Your Isobels are out there sniping at each other. Putting those hip hoppers together with the Harriers was like mixing oil and water. You ought to have recruited enough players for three teams. What stopped you?”

Jacinthe is scandalised. “Time, Agnes!”

Agnes intentionally misconstrues this as the signal to start the game, and skates to centre ice. She whistles, drops the puck, and backs up and waits for the two teams to notice that the game is on. The Finns clue in first, get their extra players off the ice, scoop up the puck, and streak through the disorganized Isobels. Hanne shoots and scores on Jodi, who isn’t even sure where the net is behind her.

Josey and Emily both fly into Agnes’s face and start yelling. Agnes patiently examines the puck in her hand. Eventually she asks, “Which one of you is captain?”

Josey: “You know it’s me.”

“Then why is this one talking to me?” Meaning Emily.

Josey: “Go to the bench, Emily.”

“The fuck?”

“Go.”

She goes ten feet, turns, gets a harsh look from Josey, leans to one side, spits, skates to the bench and sits on her arse.

Agnes: “What kind of a team are you running?”

“There’s nothing the matter with my team. I’d look at the officiating.”

“Who’s your assistant captain?”

“We haven’t chosen one.”

“Chose one now.”

“Courtney. Why?”

Agnes blows her whistle.

“She’ll have to act in your stead. You’re in the box for ten minutes for abusing the official.”

Josey elaborately shoulders her stick and goes to the box. She calls to the bench, “Courtney’s in charge.”

Emily stands, outraged.

Courtney: “Okay, Isobels! Get that goal back!”

Laura: “Wooooo!”

Irene and Louise pull Emily back down. She puts her head down and says, “So I bring in five players but I can’t be president, captain or assistant captain.”

Josey to Jacinthe: “Your friend Agnes is a crazy bitch. Emily too.”

“They’re both just trying too hard.”

“They’d both better chill out. They’re starting to piss me off.”

The game rapidly turns Louhi’s way. Courtney is a novice bench boss and gets dinged twice for too many women. Though, to be fair, the Finns prove to be experts at turning over the puck during an Isobel line change, involving both lines in the play. Hanne takes full advantage and pretty much wraps up the scoring title, potting three.

The mood on the Isobel bench does not improve much when Karin Ek dashes out of her crease, flips the puck into the air and bats it cricket-style into the night sky above the rink. Everyone stops and searches the heavens for the spinning black object. Suddenly it hits the ice twenty feet in front of the Isobel goal. Jodi goes right, it goes left, and the Finnish goalie gets her first ever goal.

After that the play gets chippy, especially once Josey gets back on. Each face-off becomes a headbutting match, and the snowbanks lose a lot of their Tuula-tended perfection. The stickwork increases. A penalty to Courtney puts Josey and Emily on the ice at the same time.

Face-off. Agnes jumps back as both teams plough together into a rugby-like scrum. They battle, shoving one another on the shoulder and digging with their sticks. The puck ricochets away and the players go after, except Josey and Emily whose skates entangle, throwing them both to the ice in a spin. As Emily recovers her feet Josey throws a slash at her, dropping her to one knee. Then as Josey clambers past her Emily rolls onto her back and chops her across the facemask. Josey lands on Emily and they start throwing punches.

Their teammates drag them apart.

Agnes skates up to Jacinthe holding Emily by one sleeve and Josey by the other. “Murphy and Wood, two minutes each for roughing, five minutes for fighting, and a game misconduct!”

Jacinthe: “But they’re on the same team!”

“I don’t give a damn! They’re bringing the game into disrepute!”

Josey: “I’m going up to the house.”

Agnes: “You’ll do no such thing! You’re supposed to be the captain! You’ll sit in that chair till I tell you to get up!”

Josey makes an angry head motion but holds her tongue.

Emily: “What about me?”

“You sit and be quiet! I never met such foolishness! Yes, you heard me! Foolishness!” To Jacinthe: “Are you going to do something about this?” She whistles with her fingers and skates over to the face-off dot.

Both Emily and Josey glare at Jacinthe.

"Well, are ya?”

“Yeah, are ya?”

Jacinthe tucks her chin in and watches the rest of the game from deep inside her hood. Louhi wins 7 to 1.

The next night the teams line up for the anthems, but before anyone can sing, Jacinthe slides out to centre ice and announces, “Teams Isobel and Louhi declare a trade! Emily, Irene and Kirsten to Louhi; Marita, Katja and Marja-Helena to Team Isobel!”

Emily breaks her stick on the ice and barrels over to Jacinthe. “You could’ve traded her.”

“It’s her team.”

“Fuck!” She skates in a small circle and comes back. “I’m not buying new pants!”

The traded players swap jerseys and positions in line. Emily puts her heart and soul into the Finnish anthem, then scores a hat trick. The Daughters of Louhi take it 4 to 3.

That night Nell, Henrietta and Louise get drunk, Nell really drunk. They weave up York Street hollering and swearing. A town police cruiser keeps pace with them a while until Louise convinces them they’re going straight home. Which they don’t. They turn into Hunton and pound on doors till they find some of their teammates and berate them about the shit deal 5F has got. This does little to endear them to the rest of the team, or the team to the rest of Hunton. They end up sleeping it off in the common room. Josey and Jacinthe, asleep in one another’s arms, don’t hear about it till the morning, from the house don.

Josey calls a practice. When she phones, Marja-Helena the Finn lets out a pent-up breath and says how terrible she feels about everything, as if it were her fault. When the Isobels arrive at the rink that evening the three phone workers are there with thermoses of cocoa and insulated lunch bags full of fresh baked cookies. Marita, Katja and Marja-Helena are the three oldest women playing in the tournament, all thirty plus, and they respond to the crisis in full maternal mode. After explaining to the rest what a pleasure it is to become part of such a fine team of chaste young women they skate over to F3 and talk to them personally. A still somewhat grey Nell comes in for particular attention, Marja-Helena telling her that youth can be tough but that she for one can tell that Nell has what it takes to come through it with treasure. Nell practically crumbles and holds up the practice for about ten minutes while she unloads her heart to her. Marja-Helena quietly guides her off to one side, figuring the others don’t need to hear all about Nell’s father or her first boyfriend. After some Kleenexes the practice gets going and turns out really well, especially after the Moms (as they come to be called) break down the Louhi playbook.

Armed with this information Team Isobel go into Game Nine and confound Louhi to the tune of 5 to 1 employing a rapid series of forward passes down the middle lane.

“What is that, Jacinthe?”

“It’s the torpedo system, Kaitlyn!”

“How do you know about that?”

“From a book!”

“Wow!”

After the game a sweating Josey cruises up to the Jacinthe and kisses her full on the mouth, holding on to her by the nape of the neck. The kiss goes on and on until many of the Isobels start whooping and banging the ice with their sticks. When she finally lets go Jacinthe sways and knocks over her chair.

The next day Jodi and Rhiannon sit down opposite each other at lunch. Normally hockey players and wiccans wouldn’t have much to talk about, but now their heads are bent together.

“So what do you think about Xena and Gabrielle?”

“I think Xena is in it deep. And Gabrielle doesn’t have a sweet clue.”

30 April 2012

It’s an off night for the SLHL. Jacinthe and Josey go for a midnight walk. Snow has been coming down since about ten and has left a two-inch layer of white fluff on the hardpack. It twinkles down around them. They had come out to talk about their situation in the privacy of the empty streets, but so far they haven’t said anything. They walk along in parallel tracks, stealing looks at one another. At some point they take each other’s hand, but between Josey’s Mt Everest mitts and Jacinthe’s blobby thrummed mittens it doesn’t work so well. Then Jacinthe makes a misstep, putting her right foot to the left of her left, she bumps into Josey’s side and deflects off, Josey catches her sleeve, swings her back, and the two collide face to face and kiss. It’s a long deep soft kiss. Their jaws work. Jacinthe grasps Josey’s sleeves, then slides a hand up to the back of Josey’s head to tilt it further down into the kiss. They break, panting.

Jacinthe: “That beats grade nine.”

“Make love to me,” says Josey.

“Yeah!” They hurry back to Josey’s room, lock the door, peal off their clothes and plunge into the bed.

The next morning Jacinthe is padding down the hall from the bathroom. She takes out her room key and is ready to turn the lock when somebody laughs and says, “You’re going into the wrong room.”

Jacinthe, who admittedly has her mind elsewhere, looks around, looks at the room number, and says, “This is my room.”

“Yeah,” says the neighbour, “I know.”

Jacinthe closes the door and wonders, ‘How noisy were we?’

Game Six is not long under way when both benches notice a change in Josey. She’s not finishing her checks or fulfilling any of her defensive responsibilities. She’s hanging around the neutral zone waiting to cherry-pick a breakout pass. She’s turning over the puck at an alarming rate.

Hanne to Sanna: “She’s got her head in the clouds tonight. Next rush I’ll put it to you through her feet.”

Kaitlyn: “Josey Wood seems to be having difficulty keeping her mind on the play. What’s up with that, Jacinthe?”

Jacinthe: “I dunno.”

Emily comes off her shift, unstraps her helmet, wipes the sweat from her face, and complains: “What is this shit? I don’t know what the fuck’s up with her. She’s in La La Land. We have to bench her.”

Irene: “How do you bench the player-coach?”

Louise: “Josey! Woody!! Get off!”

Henrietta laughs. “I’d say her getting off is the source of the problem.”

Several of the Hunton Harriers frown at that, and when Josey does come off they make sure she hears about it, but she just shrugs and grins insouciantly.

Each languid shift by Josey makes Emily’s next more intense, until the second-line centre is tearing around the rink hitting everything in sight. Her penalty minutes mount. The fourth time she’s sent off, Josey leans over and yells, “What the fuck is up with you?”

Emily: “What the fuck is up with you!”

Luohi win 4 to 0. It’s their second shutout in a row. At the final whistle Emily throws her stick and helmet into the snow.

The Finns provide carpooling after each game.

Josey and Jacinthe and Josey’s hockey bag all pile into the back seat and immediately the two lovers slide their hands inside each other’s clothes. The players in the second-last row roll their eyes and do what they can to shield them from view.

Sanna climbs into the driver’s seat and says, “Everybody buckled in? You two back there?”

Josey: “Uh huh!”

“Jacinthe?”

“Um. Uhn! Yes!”

“Good!”

They start off.

“I am very impressed with you girls,“ says Sanna, driving.

Laura: “Thanks. But you guys kicked our butt tonight.”

“No, no,” laughs Sanna. “I mean the way you’ve dedicated yourselves.”

“Well, we like hockey.”

“You’re so modest. But I’m referring to spinsterhood.”

“Huh?” This from the passengers in the second-last row.

“Team Isobel. Like the song by Björk. You know.” She sings:

My name Isobel

Married to myself.

My love Isobel

Living by herself.”

She radiates goodwill at them by way of the rear view mirror. “I take it that each one of you is more or less devoted to a life of chastity.”

Lindsay, a political science major, peers into the back seat, scratches her head thoughtfully and says, “I guess that depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is.”

‘Cause Josey and Jacinthe are getting’ up to stuff. No, you don’t need it laid out for you! Just jump ahead to where the van pulls in. They’re hurriedly hauling up their pants when they both suddenly reach to the floor for Josey’s tumbled-off hunting cap. Their foreheads crack together. They slump to opposite ends of the seat, going “Ow, ow, ow,” and look at each other with tear-filled eyes. Years later, in her novel Silver Lake, Jacinthe gives a great amount of weight to this.

23 April 2012

Game Four. Prior to the anthems Agnes skates up to Hanne and says, “I know about the spell. If I catch you pulling any more magical stunts I’m going to start handing out match penalties.”

Hanne looks taken aback. She skates over to her teammates and whispers the news. The whisper spreads through the team. They all look taken aback.

Kirsten skates out and sings If You Could Read My Mind by Gordon Lightfoot. The Finns stand there listening, wide-eyed, reading double meanings into the lyrics. The line about the ghost from the wishing well seems to freak them out particularly.

Josey scores four times in a 7 to 2 romp. When the game ends she’s ebullient, pounding her teammates on the shoulder and whooping it up. As she cruises past the timekeeper’s desk she gives Jacinthe a long speculative glance, then circles back, kisses her on the cheek, and skates off.

That night Jacinthe has a dream. It’s 1910. She’s part of a victorious hockey team who are gathered in a photographer’s studio to have their team picture taken. The seven players are all dressed in white woollen turtlenecks and black skirts. The photographer, whom she recognizes as her history professor, arranges them for the group portrait. Jacinthe is seated on a wooden chair in the centre. Behind her two shoulders stand Cathy Deirdre Zinck, wearing her Glengarry cap again, and Isobel Stanley in an astrakhan. Kneeling on either side of her are Josey and Hanne. Seated on the carpet in front are two of the 1939 Preston Rivulets, and that girl Bonny from grade nine. Jacinthe holds the championship cup. The group are in high spirits, and there’s a certain amount of joshing and jostling. Before the picture is taken Isobel leans down and begins to whisper advice into Jacinthe’s ear. It’s important information all about the key to happiness. Not to be outdone Zinck leans in and begins to descant equally good but completely contradictory advice.

“Ladies, please,” says the photographer. “On three. One. Two.”

The other seven players lean in toward Jacinthe and wrap their arms around her. The flash goes off.

Jacinthe awakes, and scrambles toward her desk to try to record the important advice, but by the time she gets pen to paper the admonitions have been blown away by a detonating sequence of orgasms.

That night before Game Five she watches the players circulate and wonders if she’ll ever get up the nerve, when suddenly Josey stops by her table in a spray of snow.

Josey: “You were in my dream last night.”

This reversal leaves Jacinthe at a temporary loss for words. She blurts, “I hope you realize I’m not responsible for things I do in your dream!”

“Too bad,” says Josey, skating away backward. “You were nice.”

Jacinthe sits there blushing.

Kaitlyn’s face is all dimpled from trying not to smile.

"I think it’s love.”

“Shh!”

The Finns have recovered their composure and come at the Isobels hard, forcing the white and black team into a defensive game. It’s scoreless well into the second period when Sanna takes a shot from in close, gets the rebound and shoots again, gets another and shoots a third time, and both teams begin to pile into the crease and on top of Jodi. Nobody knows where the puck is, then suddenly Marita throws her arms up and the Finns start to celebrate.

Josey, Courtney and Louise are instantly in Agnes’s face, arguing and pointing to the line.

Agnes: “It’s a goal.”

She skates toward the timekeeper’s table.

Josey, behind her, says: “Score one for Team Zebra.”

Agnes makes an about face and signals unsportsmanlike conduct.

In the box Josey says, “She wants them to win. This whole thing is about pleasing the Finns.”

Later at Hunton Josey drops her hockey bag and looks down the hall toward Jacinthe is if about to say something. Jacinthe stands by her door with her key in her hand, the picture of twentyness in her Sorels and cargo pants, ancient parka with the braid hanging off, an equally old peppermint green sweater, and a headful of lank blondish-brown curls.

Jacinthe (laughing): “What?”

“You’re cute.”

(Shining and twinkling): “You’re not so horrible yourself.”

Josey clomps up close and lays her hand against Jacinthe’s cheek. Jacinthe utters a tiny sigh, then, recovering, bites Josey’s thumb. Two neighbours walk past, all eyes. Josey and Jacinthe part and retreat to their separate rooms. They toss and turn all night.

16 April 2012

Team Isobel line up in white jerseys, the black hockey pants, and white stockings. Louhi are dressed in purple and green, like Jokerit Helsinki used to wear in the Nineties. Tuula Leskinen skates forward and sings the Finnish anthem. The other Finns join her. Of course the Canadians don’t understand a bit of it. Finnish is neither Germanic nor Latin and has no recognisible words, except sauna, but how often does that come up? The language tends to strike non-speakers as otherworldly, especially when sung. Tolkien based Elvish on it for a reason. When they’re done Jacinthe feels a shiver. She turns to Kaitlyn and says, “That was spooky.”

Kaitlyn agrees, making a note. She has a large sheaf of papers in front of her. She has done a lot of preparation.

“Dead air is death,” she tells Jacinthe. “Think you can handle colour commentary? You don’t have to call the plays. Just talk about context.”

“I better see those notes.”

“Okay. Shhh. Here I go. Hello, and welcome hockey fans in Canada, the internet, and ships at sea. We’re gathered here at the Silver Lake Ice Arena in … Sweden … to watch the first game in the championship series between Team Isobel and the Daughters of Louhi. I’m Kaitlyn Abbas, your play-by-play announcer, with colour commentator Jacinthe Bailey.”

“Hello.”

“We’re just waiting for the two teams to line up and referee Agnes Blanchard to drop the first puck. The opening line-up for the Louhi squad are Raikannen, Helminen, Momonen, Jarvenpaa, Honkavarra and Ek in goal. For Team Isobel we have Wood at centre, MacDonnell, and some other names I’ll mention later because the puck is dropped! Wood takes the face-off, sends it back to Spenser, up to Gallant, who gets the zone. She waits for Butler, a pass, Butler shoots! Oh! High and wide. And now the puck is in the snow. They’re looking for it. And, so, Jacinthe, what a beautiful outdoor venue.”

“It certainly is, Kaitlyn. It’s one of the premier outdoor facitities in use.”

“It reminds me of the open air rink at the 1932 Lake Placid Winter Olympics, without the Adirondack Mountains of course.”

“How?”

“I read about it in a book!”

The puck is located, play resumes, and Team Isobel goes on to a 5 to 3 victory. The players shake hands and everybody agrees that it’s a stunning success. Agnes makes a note to get more pucks. Louise skates over to Jacinthe and thanks her warmly for reviving her interest in F5. Hanne talks to Agnes, then comes over and congratulates Jacinthe for helping the Finns feel so much at home. Josey skates around playing with the puck while this is going on, then skates up and ruffles Jacinthe’s hair with her gloved hand, for no apparent reason. Jacinthe watches her skate away, wondering.

Game Two. This one gets off to a good start for the Isobels. They rapidly put three past Ek, who is clearly off her game. After potting the third Emily returns to the bench pointing to herself and holding up her index finger, meaning she now has the individual goal-scoring lead. Josey says, “Team play, babes, team play.”

One of the factors differentiating SLHL hockey from most other varieties is the absence of boards. No boards, no boarding. So when Henrietta bee-stings Marita into the snowbank Agnes is forced to improvise a new penalty called snowbanking. The signal is a violent shoving motion.

Henrietta: “I never heard of it!”

Agnes: “I’m makin’ it up! Get in the box!”

Louhi go on the power play and score.

Josey glides over to Agnes and asks, “Are there any more new penalties I should know about?”

Agnes: “Unsportsmanlike conduct covers sarcastic tones.”

The Finns dig down and come back to tie it. The Isobels spend most of the third period in their own end, blocking shots, and taking delay of game penalties for chipping the puck into the snow. When Jacinthe blows the play dead at the expiry of time the Isobels collapse and congratulate each other on the tie.

Agnes says, “Shoot-out.”

Josey drops her stick and skates up to her.

“What the fuck?!”

“’In the case of a tie, a shoot-out will ensue.’”

“Don’t act like you’re quoting. You just made it up!”

“Am I league president or not?”

Josey skates away, looks over her shoulder and says, “I voted for Emily!”

The Isobels win the shoot-out on a nice deke by Irene, but they’re not pleased.

In Game Three Hanne shows why she got that job in Switzerland. She puts one past Jodi on the first rush and goes on to score seven, surpassing Emily in a single period. Under the stress of getting slaughtered the Isobels begin to show some of their internal divisions. On one shift change the three Isobel forwards come off and F5 jump on the ice. Agnes whistles the play dead and assesses a penalty for too many women.

Josey to Emily: “What were you doing?”

“We’re a unit.”

“You’re a unit.”

The two make a tight, threatening orbit around each other before their friends guide them away.

Kaitlyn: “Isobels evincing a modicum of dissension. Jacinthe.”

Jacinthe: “Josey’s the captain. She’s got to figure out a way to bring those players together, not inculcate unrest.”

Kaitlyn: “Word up.”

Louhi wins 10 to 1.

The next day Kaitlyn comes into Jacinthe’s room and offers her one of the earphones from her iPod. Jacinthe puts it in her ear.

“Listen to this.”

A huge choir is performing a song in Finnish. “What am I listening to?”

“That’s the Finnish national anthem.”

“But. That’s not what they sang before the game.”

“No, it is not. They sang something else. We have a theory.”

“We? Who?”

“Us. The coven.”

Jacinthe blinks, catching up. “What theory?”

“They were laying a spell.”

Jacinthe goes in search of Agnes, finally tracking her down in a quiet corner of the library.

“You never appreciate time until you don’t have enough of it,” says Agnes with a pencil in her mouth and a couple of coloured pens stuck into her braided hair. She’s surrounded by writing pads and heaps of open books.

“Agnes, I think the Finns may be cheating.”

“No, no, Hanne is allowed. That’s the whole point.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s. Well. We think. Kaitlyn thinks they may be using sorcery.”

Agnes storms back to residence, Jacinthe in tow. She charges into Kaitlyn’s room.

“There better be something to this.”

Kaitlyn, Fiona, Rhiannon, and Beth look up from their studying. Fiona pulls a book from the shelf and says, “Watch this.”

She arranges an assortment of sprigs on the open book, then places a little maneki neko figurine in their midst. She holds up the book and sings the anthem the Finns have been using. The figurine turns into a black cat, which takes one look around, dives off the book and out the door.

"Some kind of transmutational spell at work. We need to go out to the lake.”

Agnes: “Jacinthe, call a cab.”

They walk down to the lake. Tuula has been working on the ice but is not around.

Jacinthe: “Do we have to do anything? Join hands or stamp a pentagram in the snow or anything?”

Kaitlyn: “No, it’s all set up. Fiona just has to drink the potion.”

Fiona brings a vial out of her pocket and pulls the cork.

Jacinthe: “Phew. What’s in that?”

Fiona: “Oh, this and that, some of it from the dining hall. Squirty mustard, for one.”

Agnes: “Mustard is pagan?”

Fiona: “Depends how you use it. Anyway, here goes.”

She steps between the other three and the lake, drinks the potion, and makes a red hot pepper sauce face. The wind rises and blows her wavy locks around. They wait.

“Here it comes,” she says. She’s gradually starting to darken, her red hair fading to jet, her sunburn-prone Celtic skin going charcoal grey with black freckles. Presently she’s completely dark and featureless, like a Fiona-shaped movie screen. Then her silhouette slowly lightens. She clarifies into a window. They gather together and peer through to the scene beyond.

“Wow.”

The view of Silver Lake through Fiona is in some ways the same as the one around her. The lay of the land is the same. But instead of nestling in a hollow among hayfields and farmhouses, the lake is set deep in a forest. The forest is chiefly spruce and pine, and seems to extend beyond the horizon. And what’s more, the tree tops are sprinkled with light, as if the constellations had swung too low and got snagged in the branches. A galaxy of starlight surrounds the outdoor rink.

Kaitlyn: “Oh, yeah, enchanted for sure.”

Agnes: “How are the Finns doing this? Is it affecting the outcomes? Am I going to have to disqualify them?”

Kaitlyn: “They don’t seem to be constraining the other persons’ actions, or giving themselves superpowers. I don’t get any kind of a curse off this. I think they’re just trying to make themselves feel like they’re in their home rink.”

Jacinthe: “Magical home ice advantage?”

Kaitlyn: “Pretty much.”

Agnes: “Well, I’m going to allow it.”

Jacinthe: “What?”

Agnes: “This is no different than packing the stands with your own fans.”

Jacinthe: “But—“

“My mind’s made up.”

Fiona: “Good. Because I think I’m going to—“

She barfs.

The others: “Oooh!”

The vision fades and Fiona begins to regain her natural appearance, though in a considerably partied-out version.

Fiona: “My stomach did not care for that potion. Glegh!”

She barfs again.

“Oooh! Yuck!”

Fiona gasps for breath, bent double. “Brugh!”

More barf.

Kaitlyn rubs Fiona’s back and says, “Hey, look!”

Each puddle of barf has sprouted into a patch of wildflowers.

Kaitlyn: “That’s magic.”

Fiona pulls a dandelion out of her mouth and says, “I am going to be so hungover tomorrow.”

09 April 2012

The founding meeting of the Silver Lake Hockey League takes place in an empty classroom the first week of exams. On hand are Agnes, Jacinthe, Josey, Emily of F5, Hanne, Sanna and Tuula. Like any good chairman Agnes has made all the decisions before the meeting and has enough supporters on hand to retroactively endorse them if they come to a vote. Hanne nominates Agnes for league president, seconded by Sanna, saying that it makes the most sense if the referee is president. “Agnes is referee?” says Emily, who is out of the loop. “We’ll put that to a vote in a minute,” says Agnes, adding, “Do you want to run for it?” “Hells, no, but somebody nominate me for president.” Nobody offers to until Jacinthe catches Agnes’s look and nominates her, seconded by Josey, after Jacinthe elbows her. Agnes wins 4 to 3. Agnes is then chosen referee by acclamation. Hanne is introduced as captain of the Finnish team, to be called the Daughters of Louhi, Josey as captain of the other team, as yet unnamed. Tuula is elected rink manager, Jacinthe timekeeper and official statistician.

Emily: “You can’t have a league with only two teams.”

Agnes: “You can have a series. Best of seven. No, eleven. It’s not perfect, but we’re up against the clock. Natural ice is only reliable for two months of the year, January and February. If we don’t put a fire under our ass, excuse my language, we’ll miss the season. We’ll worry about expansion next year. Would you like to head the expansion committee?”

“Yeah, sure.”

They elect Emily to that.

Agnes: “So we’ll meet again when term begins. Everybody have a good holiday, except Tuula, whose work is just beginning.” Tuula pantomimes clearing snow all day. The Finns laugh as if to say, “That’s so Tuula.” The meeting breaks up. The students write their exams. For Christmas Jacinthe asks for Stanfields and Sorels. She actually shouts with glee when Aunt Melba gives her a pair of handknit wool socks, to her brother’s consternation. The afternoon she returns to school she commandeers an old powder blue parka with white fur trim and a pointy hood from the basement.

Her mother: “That’s ancient! I wore that in school! The arse is practically out of it! If you’d wanted a coat why didn’t you ask for one for Christmas? I’d’ve gone to the Gap! You dress like a crack addict!”

“But it’s perfect! I love it! I love it because it’s yours!”

“You make me mental!”

“Kiss me, the car’s here, I’m going!”

“Get away from me! Don’t smoke dope in it, you’ll never get the smell out!”

“Okay! Bye, Mom! I love you!”

“I love you!”

That evening back at Hunton Jacinthe is interviewed about her comics by her next-door neighbour Kaitlyn for her blog WitchoftheNbyNE.com. Kaitlyn is into gadgets and has the self-same digital recorder as Cathy Deirdre Zinck. The sight of it gets Jacinthe thinking.

“You going to podcast this?”

“Uh huh.”

“So, ever call a hockey game?”

Tuula has been working like, well, Tuula. She drives to the university, tracks down Agnes, and hangs around outside the classroom till the lecture’s over.

“I want to show you the rink,” she says.

They buckle in and go. On the way she talks non-stop about the rink’s planning and execution, the problems she encountered, and the ways she worked around them. Agnes sits listening, and learns more about administration in the time it takes to get to Middle Sackville than in three of her five courses that year. They walk down the slope to the sheet of ice. The surface is 80 feet by 180, nearly major league size. Instead of boards there are banks of snow cleared from the ice. A Canadian Tire road hockey net stands at each end. Along one side the snow has been tamped down and two benches installed. Between them are two wooden chairs (penalty boxes) separated by a table with two chairs for the timekeeper and broadcaster. At each corner of the rink stands a bank of lights on a metal pole, each powered by car batteries in handmade pine boxes.

Agnes: “It’s wonderful.”

Tuula: “I have to ask you about the rulebook. How many lines do you want?” She pulls blue and red paint cans from beneath the timekeeper’s table.

Agnes puts her head down, slides across the ice like a curler and gives Tuula a tight embrace. Tuula holds the cans clear of Agnes’s jacket.

Agnes: “Nobody has ever asked me what I wanted like that before. Thank you! Thank you!”

At lunch the next day Agnes walks by Jacinthe and hisses, “The schedule’s out and your team hasn’t even practiced yet.”

“My team? What?”

“You’re the manager. Get your ass in gear.”

“I thought you were in charge.”

“I’m the league president and head of officiating. I can’t be seen to favour one team.”

The rhetorical weapon works. Nobody wants to look like a baby. But there’s a lot of scowling.

Kirsten: “They have them at Play It Again Chicks in Amherst. They’re pretty reasonable.”

Josey: “See? Done. So, what name?”

Nell: “F5.”

Laura: “Fuck off! Harriers.”

Emily: “That’s your intramural team!” She looks at Jacinthe and says, “If we have to buy pants and use their motherfucking name we’re out.”

Jacinthe: “Um! Uh!”

Josey: “It’s not Harriers.” She unzips her knapsack and pulls out a picture book, Brian McFarlane’s book on the history of women’s hockey. She says, “I don’t think you junior-Ks appreciate the importance of what’s going on here. What we’re about to do as a team should be the next page in this book. Look, see this skater right here? Isobel Stanley. Organized a women’s hockey game in 1889. A hundred and whatever the fuck years ago. John A. Macdonald days. It grew and spread out and before you knew it there were women’s teams all over. Fifty years of women’s hockey. Then, for some reason, it was against the rules. Who decided that? Officials. So now the women are back at it, but look who’s coming around saying, ‘You can’t do this, you can’t do that.’ Officials. We are taking the game back from the officials, and playing whoever we like. Just like,” she flips back, “Isobel Stanley. We’re Team Isobel.”

02 April 2012

A group of Finnish telecom workers have expressed an interest in forming a women’s hockey team to play in the local league. Unfortunately there is no senior women’s league in town. “We’ll form one!” declares the Mayor, and the wheels are set in motion, top gear. After an intense recruiting drive unofficially named “Let’s Do Whatever the Finns Ask!” a group of players large enough to stock four teams is rounded up. Preliminary meetings are held with the rink authorities, who must reassign ice times, team sponsors come forward with money for equipment, and the campus radio station offers play-by-play coverage. Everything is progressing to plan when the whole thing comes to a crash tinkle against Mrs Estabrooks.

“This player, Hanne Raikannen. She played semi-pro hockey in Switzerland.”

The Mayor: “Meaning she’s too good for the other players?”

“Meaning she’s a professional.” She says it like it means typhoid carrier. “I have nothing against professional sport, in its place. But she cannot be allowed to mix with amateurs. If she plays, she will infect her team, her team will infect the other team, both teams will infect the league and put a quarantine on the rink. No one from Sackville with aspirations to compete in a provincial, national or international competition in either hockey or ice skating will be free of the stain. Do you want to go down as the mayor who lost the town an Olympic gold medal?”

He doesn’t. He straightens his tie crooked and retreats to an emergency meeting of council.

Agnes, who is present as Mrs Estabrooks’ aide-de-camp, makes a fist and mutters, “Foolishness! Foolishness!”

Jacinthe is reading The Kalevala for her world mythology class. Turns out Louhi is like this major league Nordic witch goddess. Her kids too.

Agnes pounds on the door and enters. “Jacinthe, I think my brain is about to explode. They’re going to disqualify the Finns from the women’s league because one of them got a housing allowance to play in Switzerland. The whole reason for having the league was to accommodate the Finns. What kind of message does that put out? Let’s scare your foreign investment out of the province! Why don’t you relocate to the Dartmouth Industrial Park? They’ll play hockey with cats and dogs there!”

“What are you going to do about it?” Agnes stops and stares into the distance with her hands in her hair.

“It’s up to me, isn’t it? Those people don’t have two clues to rub together. This is where I start to put things right.”

If she had a sword she’d draw it.

“Jacinthe, you’re the smartest friend a person ever had. From here on, wherever I go, you go. We’re a great team the pair of us, I’ve always said that. Between the two of us there’s no amount of foolish nonsense we can’t end. Mark your calendar. The tide of common sense begins right now, and you’re on hand to see the bore.”

Possibly a weak metaphor but she’ll rephrase it in her memoirs. She heads out the door with dragons to slay.

Jacinthe shifts around in her seat. “Uh. Okay.”

November 21, 2006

Dear diary,

The campaign to save the telecom jobs is begun, with my former roommate Jacinthe on board as my personal assistant. Could there be a more loyal and intelligent supporter? I don’t think so! I’m so lucky to have her as a friend! Though her advice on boys has always been a little iffy, and she’ll never get one for herself dressed like that. (Cargo pants.) We’ll work on her looks once this hockey fiasco is put right. For now I have to depend on her to act as go-between with the Finns. I’ll get her to approach this Hanne Reikannen. Working as closely as I do to Mrs Estabrooks I can’t be seen to be acting against the interests of the new women’s league. On the other hand this linesman job has me ideally situated to keep on top of developments. I’m glad Dwa- I thought of it.

Dwayne comes across Jake in the dining hall. From the empty plates in front of Jake he would seem to be working on his third helping of stew.

“So, how are things coming along with you and Scrumptious?”

“She’s a gymnast, Dwayne. A gymnast!”

A week later, Jake and Janice are in bed, Jake on the bottom and Janice bouncing blissfully on top. He says, “You have the loveliest breasts, Jacinthe.”

Janice freezes, climbs off him, pulls on her clothes, and doesn’t speak to him again for twenty-eight years.

Jacinthe learns that Hanne Raikannen and three other Louhi women are renting a place near Silver Lake. Saturday morning she looks out her window at the grey clouds scouring the horizon and begins to load on the layers. Like most university students Jacinthe trusts in the insulating power of hoodies and tube socks. She wraps her Mt A scarf around her head babushka-style and pulls on a pair of maroon and yellow thrummed mitts. Ready for anything!

She‘s never walked out to Middle Sackville before. A third of the way there she thinks, ‘I must be nearly there by now.’ Halfway there she resolves to buy a pair of boots the next time she’s in Moncton. Two thirds of the way there a blast of wind goes through her like a harpoon and she huddles with her back to it on the side of the road, cursing and blinking.

A van pulls up.

“Do you want a ride?”

She climbs in, buries her frozen face in her mitts for a minute, then looks around, red-cheeked and runny-nosed. Four Finns are smiling at her.

“For a northern people you Canadians don’t dress so smart.”

They take her to their house where by the time they get there she explains she was going. They decamp from the van and Jacinthe gets her first good look at Silver Lake. The ice is already forming around the edge of it. An idea starts to form too.

In the house they give her coffee and a couple of them even rub her arms briskly to get the blood moving. They’re all between 23 and 33, not all of them stereotypically blonde, and, from the amount of fun they seem to be having, all on a big adventure. Jacinthe likes them almost instantly.

She apologizes for the hockey snafu, and tries to explain it in terms of how some people sometimes take a little bit of power and build it into a fiefdom, but they all laugh and treat it as a big joke. “We’re Europeans. We invented that!”

They ask her when she thinks the lake will freeze.

She asks them how many hockey players they have.

They ask her if anyone would like to play them.

She asks them to keep it under their hat.

The Sackville Senior Women’s Hockey League is launched at the start of December with three teams: the Lions, the Tigers, and Midgic Gravel and Cartage, and without the Finns. Agnes continues as Mrs Estabrooks’ number two, to serve as linesman for each of thirty scheduled league games, plus the playoffs, every Tuesday and Friday evening through to the end of March. One unforeseen outcome of this is that by the end of that time Agnes has thighs on her like tree trunks. In a one ref, one linesman system like the one used by the SSWHL the one linesman does a lot of skating. File that fact away.

Jacinthe is sitting in her room late one evening, trying to figure out where to find a team of uncommitted female hockey players. She hears somebody in the hall say, “Fuckin’ next time, girls. Those thumb-sucking Windsor bitches don’t know what’s waiting for them. Bunny-slipper-housecoat-wearing-coffee-travel-mug-drinking little princesses.”

She looks out her door and sees several members of the Hunton women’s intramural hockey team in hockey equipment and snowmobile boots standing outside their room doors. She realizes she doesn’t even know their names.

“Hey. What was the score?”

“Oh, like you care. Do you even know how to skate?”

In fact she doesn’t. Her first impulse is to go back in her room, but instead she says, “I need eleven players to take on the Finns.”

The biggest of the players comes down the hall toward her. She’s a head taller than Jacinthe, with orange-red hair sticking up in dried-sweat tufts like licks of flame, and a big-bridged hockey nose. She shakes Jacinthe by the hand.

“I’m Josey. Sign me on. I don’t care when or where. I’ll kick their ass.” She calls over her shoulder, “You sucky babies going to bed or something?”

In no time Jacinthe has six names: Josey, Jodi, Laura, Lindsay, Kirsten, and Courtney. Five to go.

Saturday she goes to the rink to scope out the Mt A vs St FX game. There’s no way she’s going to get any of the varsity players; in fact she’s under strict orders from Agnes to stay clear of that whole organization, but maybe she can scoop up a few cut players, if she can just find out who they are somehow. She sits near by a group of hockey moms, scrutinizes the Xeroxed program for clues, and tries to figure out how icing works. She’s never been the biggest hockey fan, has always found somewhere else to be on Saturday nights, leaving the TV to her brother and dad. Hockey to her is about two teams digging endlessly for the puck along the boards, a kind of trench warfare. She watches the players fly by, though, and thinks, ‘This is aerial combat.’ She can almost see the arrows on the coach’s white board as St FX swoop through the Mt A zone and loop around the net. It’s Pearl Harbour. She notices that the Mounties seem to be spending much of the period skating in reverse, or forming a box around the net and sweeping their sticks in front of them and occasionally knocking the puck across the line and breaking for the other end. The thought dawns, ‘Hey, they’re beating us!’ The hockey moms know it already and are yelling, “Way to go, Kimmy! Hustle! Hustle! Nice transition, girls! Jesus, Brianna! Stupid penalty!”

At the end of the period she watches the players file off. The Zamboni and the net-shepherd come out on the ice and begin their routine. Jacinthe puts her chin on her palm and tries to think of her next move.

“I like your mitts. Where did you get them?”

She turns and sees the hockey moms looking at her. She moves up closer to them.

“My Aunt Melba.”

“May I?”

She pulls one off and hands it up. The hockey mom turns it over, inspects the thumb gusset, then deftly turns it inside out. The other hockey mom smiles and says to Jacinthe, “Industrial espionage.”

The first one pulls the mitten right side out and hands it back, saying, “Nicely done. Your aunt’s a good knitter.”

“Do you come to all these games?” she asks them.

They react as if it’s an odd question. They’re hockey moms.

“I haven’t seen you before,” says the first one. “Are you a … roommate?”

“I’m a scout, actually.”

This sets them back.

“I’m looking to sign five players for a new senior league team.”

They exchange a look. Just then there’s a ruckus as a group of students arrive yelling, “Wooooo!! Fans are in the house now! Uh huh! Uh huh! F5 are on the scene!” The latecomers claim a block of seats. Then one of them stands up, pounds on a pot with a serving spoon, and yells, “Where are those Xs? Hidin’ in their room? You go tell ’em we got their boyfriends out here! You won’t see them no more! They’re your exs now! We’re just gonna sit in their laps and watch the game, and afterwards go clean out the candy machine! If you catch my innuendo!”

The hockey moms rear back, curling their lips, and point. “Them!”

Jacinthe knows them, actually. They’re the girls from Dartmouth she mentioned to Zinck. She gets up to go join them but seeing one of them make an exit she follows the train of thought and goes out to the candy machine.

“Yo, Lou’Eaze!”

Lou’Eaze is loading chocolate bars into the pockets of her ancient shawl-collared sweater. That and a cloth cap over her short afro give her a look that says retro chic, or else too tired to think about clothes. She says,

“Just Louise will do, thanks.”

Jacinthe gears down to cautious.

“So you come out to all the games? The hockey moms seem to recognize you.”

“They hate us. I don’t blame them either, the way we swear and curse.”

“You sound kind of unhappy with it.”

“I think the gangsta thing’s a little played. I was kind of hoping to move on to something new this year. In a couple years I’ll be applying to do post-grad. How is Can stand on one hand going to help with that? That’s why I went after the rest of them to go out for varsity hockey this fall.”

“Just don’t get me going. We were good enough for those Mounties, but we got the axe because of ‘attitude’. That’s exactly what I want written on the corner of my application to Saskatchewan. ‘Attitude.’ You can be sure they don’t lend out their particle accelerator to folks with ‘attitude’ written on the corner of their application. So now instead of playing, we heckle.”

“What do the others think about all this?”

“Irene is leaning the same way as me, toward calling it quits. Henrietta idolizes Emily. She’ll follow her anywhere. Nellz is a total party beast. She’ll side with the most beer.”

“So what about Emily?”

“That’s it, isn’t it? Emily wants to keep the old crew going forever. And why not? She’s the MC. I mean, I love her like a sister, but she does go on. It gets kind of high school after a while, you know what I’m saying? Sure, I’m as up for ménage à dix as the next girl, as long as there’s a maxi box of condoms in the middle of the floor, but does she have to yell about it at every game? They all think we’re sluts!”

Jacinthe makes some noises to suggest she’s been there too and sympathizes, but she hasn’t, at all. She says, “I’m recruiting players for a hockey team to take on the Finnish phone workers. Do you think you’d like to join? You could bring along the rest of them. It’d be a way to keep F5 going and still make a change.”

“I don’t know. I’m just tired of everything.” She leans against the candy machine.

Jacinthe: “I like your sweater. It’s very Forties.”

Louise closes her hands on the cuffs and turns the worn sleeves one way and another, inspecting them.